I'm sitting in my office, thinking about a topic to write about. It's not really writer's block since this article technically isn't due for a couple of more weeks. I tend to miss my deadline by a day or two nowadays but it's not really a big deal either.
Unlike some writers I used to know way back in the day when I did stats at the U.S. Tennis Open, I never consider anything I do writing for the Pulitzer. There was a very good writer, but a bit infamous for taking forever to pen any of his writings. The story goes he had 19 hours to write a column for his San Diego player after a day at Wimbledon was completed and yes he still did not file the story on time. If I ever sat 19 hours staring at a computer screen or a piece of paper you could file those papers on my never to be seen again.
So, I'm sitting here listening to Rewound Radio as they play through what is called their top 77 of the year with lots of extras thrown in. Each year I'm amazed by the number of songs which gets votes and yet there is always some really good song which did not make someone's top 10. In 2022, exactly 2,999 songs got votes and you wonder should not the people running the web site created one fake list just so 3,000 different songs got votes. In 2023, the 3.000 barrier was safely eclipsed and all is right with the world again.
As you can tell, Rewound Radio is based on the music of yesterday and unless there is a random vote or two people like Taylor Swfit or Ariana Grande are never heard this week or ever on this internet station. And in a strange way that gets me to thinking about my card "corporate" like because even though some things change, other things never do.
One of my favorite sayings about my old Beckett days is that my job never changed but the way I did it sure did. When I started in the price guide area all we had to go on for pricing was seeing ads in hobby publications, going to shows to see people and cards in person, reading on-line dealer platforms such as SportsNet. Dealer Net B2B is one of the closest things today to the old SportsNet. And yes their influence was more than just prices. They had a Talking Baseball category and you could see a ton of unfiltered comments about the hobby and yes about us at Beckett as well. I used to save them all every year just for fun.
In some ways, as I discussed with Dr. Beckett on one of his recent podcasts, that way was very challenging because we had to try to filter out those obviously or not so obvious fake things and stay with the closest version of reality we could come up with for pricing. By the time I left, Ebay had already become the dominant form of getting pricing information but there were also other things such as integrating the Beckett Marketplace information and the prices from auction houses big and small. There were still a few other ways as well but the world had completely flipped and the old ways were long gone.
Or to adapt this quote by Spock on one of the very best original Star Trek episodes. "I'm endeavouring, Ma'am, to construct a mnemonic memory circuit using stone-knives and bear-skins."
Stone Knives (youtube.com)
Yes, those stone-knives and bear-skins were all we had back then. Now we have more information available at the tip of our fingers than we endeavored to use back in the day. C'mon now, and this is said with only a touch of sarcasm, the words you hear most as a card show is,,, "My comps say this". I think that's why I prefer shopping at the value boxes, not only are they more affordable but they also are not as comp dependent.
Can I trade yesterday for today. Well, in some ways I'd love to shave 30 years off my life but in other ways, we've all adopted to the new ways and will continue to do so. And I'm going to be fascinated by what type of things COMC (my employer) amongst other tech companies are going to do to keep matriculating that ball downfield.
Just keep matriculating the ball down the field boys. (youtube.com)
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